Clancy: The comeback

Menarchem can relate, sending résumés out and not even getting negative responses, just silence. On one occasion, fed up, he went to an office building to present his résumé to a company he thought would be a good fit.

“Bu with today’s security environment, I didn’t get very far,” he said.

As in not past the fortress of the front desk. He called the company from the lobby and was told to give his résumé to the front desk. “They wouldn’t take it, of course,” Menarchem said. “Finally somebody going for coffee came down and took it.”

He never heard a word.

That’s difficult to bear for a person who has always been treated – and treated others – with courtesy and respect.

But Menarchem knows something firsthand about bearing much heavier burdens, especially when he fills orders at the food bank.

“I see and speak with neighboring Long Islanders all the time,” he said. “Just the other day a woman came in, her husband’s a teacher out of work for a long time. Her car was falling apart. She was crying. And I look at myself and I think I’m so lucky.”